


Thanatopsis

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Episode: s02e16 Roadkill, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:19:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fic inspired by "Roadkill" in which Sam and Dean are the principal players</p><p>This is probably my favorite of all the fic I've written and the one that was the most emotional to write.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanatopsis

_June 19, 2009_

When Sam finally opens the motel door, key fumbling in the lock for a good ten seconds before it turns, Dean can’t look him in the face. He stares at Sam’s shoes instead, at the mud-soaked hem of his jeans, at the tiny rip in the denim across his right knee.

“Sorry we got separated,” Sam says. He strips his clothes as he talks, lobbing his ruined T-shirt into the trash. “Hey, are you okay?” And then he’s bending over Dean, gripping his shoulder, and Dean has to look. Sam’s brow is furrowed, the hair at the nape of his neck sweated into curls, and Dean can barely breathe this close to him.

“Yeah,” Dean says and his voice catches, comes up gravel and broken glass. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“Good. ‘Cause that was close. Too close.” Then Sam grins, busted lip and adrenaline, eyes dark and sly. “But those vamps are fucking wasted. When you went all Highlander on that one dude . . .” He shakes his head, pulls Dean up and kisses him, hard and bruising and Dean can taste Sam’s blood and maybe a little of his own.

Sam hustles Dean into the shower and soaps up his shoulder blades with a fraying washcloth. “Not a scratch on you. Huh. Could’ve sworn. . . ” he says. Sam reaches around him to adjust the shower head and Dean runs a fingertip down the blue thread of a vein, wonders at the fragility. Then Sam blows him, hunkered down in the sluice of water. It’s quick, sloppy, like every other time they’ve fucked in the shower, and it’s over way too soon.

After, Dean watches Sam sleep. He watches the rise and fall of his brother’s chest, the subtle twitch of his eyelids as he dreams. Dean doesn’t mean to sleep, but he’s so tired and he can’t help curling into Sam’s heat.

When Dean wakes, he’s alone and the empty space beside him has cooled.

_June 19, 2012_

“Sorry we got separated,” Sam says. He strips his clothes as he talks, lobbing his ruined T-shirt into the trash. 

Dean shakes his head just like he practiced and says, “Well, grandma, some of us don’t run like pussies.”

Later when Sam’s licking down Dean’s belly, his tongue slows over the scar on Dean’s left hip. Dean panics, waits for Sam to say, “This is new. Why don’t I remember this?” but Sam says nothing. He just licks up and down, once, twice, and when Dean flips him over and presses into him, the only things Sam says are, “Yes,” and, “More,” and, “Love you.” 

_June 19, 2017_

Ten minutes before sundown, Missouri calls. “What you’re doing is wrong, Dean Winchester. You know it. Sam never wanted this. Your father would have. . .” Dean hangs up on her. He won’t speak to her again.

When Sam shows, Dean picks a fight. He’s surprised and a little ashamed at how easily he falls back into that rhythm, how much he’s missed the roll of Sam’s eyes, the fierce clench of his brother’s jaw when he’s pissed. Eventually, Sam wrestles Dean to the bed and they fuck, Dean’s legs wrapped around Sam’s waist.

Dean whispers, “I’m sorry,” into Sam’s neck when he comes, and he hopes Sam’s forgiveness will cover the wrongs he cannot name.

_June 19, 2023_

This year they sit in the Impala and drink Miller High Life with the windows rolled down and Zeppelin playing quiet as a lullaby. 

“After you left,” Dean says, “I came to Stanford every couple months. Checked out the wards on your place, made sure nothing freaky was nosing around.”

“I know,” Sam says.

Dean leans back in the seat, shaking his head.

“You weren’t exactly stealthy, Dean. Who’d you think Jess kept leaving those cookies on the counter for? Santa Claus?”

Just before dawn, Sam falls asleep, his cheek pressed against the glass and his legs stretched out into Dean’s footwell. Dean watches as Sam’s shape grows more and more indistinct, until the lines of his body are no longer distinguishable from the air that held it.

_June 19, 2030_

Sam throws open the door like always, and then he pauses, backlit by the bank of street lights that front the motel. He closes the door behind him carefully, looking at Dean like he’s a stranger, then blinks and starts up the same old script.

“Sorry we got separated,” Sam says. He strips his clothes as he talks, lobbing his ruined T-shirt into the trash. 

Sam’s gentle with Dean this night, moving in him like he’s something precious, something breakable. He kisses the corners of Dean’s eyes, rubs a thumb across Dean’s bottom lip and down to his jaw. After, while Dean pretends to sleep, Sam cards his fingers through his hair, lifts the strands to the lamp light and sighs.

_June 19, 2034_

Twenty five years—not even a month of days that matter—and Dean knows this is the last time. The motel’s gone, just red clay bulldozed flat and Sam can’t fail to notice now. Dean drives the Impala between two sawhorses and onto the vacant lot; he sits on the hood, metal warm under his jeans, and waits.

“Hey, Dean.” Sam slides up beside him on the hood and hunches over, hands in his pockets.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Dean says, and thinks of the care he’s taken to keep everything the same—his haircut, his flannel shirt now whisper-thin and faded, their duffel bag filled with unwashed clothes that smelled like Sam for years but don’t anymore. 

“How stupid do you think I am? Dude, you’re older than Dad. You’ve been grey for forever now. You probably need a cane, old man.” Sam laughs, bright and clean, head thrown back and so fucking young it hurts Dean to look at him.

“I can still beat your ass, bitch.”

“Jerk.” Sam bumps Dean’s knee with his own, that familiar jolt of bone on bone, a dance decades old and comforting .

“If you knew, why’d you keep coming here? Why didn’t you move on?” Dean holds his breath. 

“You needed me,” Sam says. For a long time neither of them speaks. The sky is full of clouds, thick and low and smeared orange by the city lights. 

“I couldn’t find your body. I tried. For years.” Dean stops. He’d like to tell Sam he’d have done right by him, offered him up in salt and blaze, but he isn’t sure anymore. Maybe he never was.

“I know,” Sam says, threading his fingers through Dean’s and rubbing his thumb absently on Dean’s palm.

Dean clears his throat. “Are you ready?”

“No.” Sam laughs again, much smaller this time, and Dean tightens his hold until the ache in his wrist matches the one in his chest.

“Dean, you have to let go of my hand.”

One last kiss, a sweet swipe of tongue-- _oh Jesus it’s never enough_ \--and Dean can do this. He can. He lets go of Sam’s hand.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Footnote](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11924577) by [kribban](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kribban/pseuds/kribban)




End file.
